The Monarchs of the Main; or, Adventures of the Buccaneers

Preface.
Volume 1.
Chapter 1. History of Tortuga.
Chapter 2. Manners of the Hunters.
Chapter 3. The Flibustiers, or Sea Rovers.
Chapter 4. Peter The Great, the First Buccaneer.
Chapter 5. Lolonnois the Cruel.
Chapter 6. Alexandre Bras-De-Fer, and Montbars the Exterminator.
Volume 2.
Chapter 1. Sir Henry Morgan.
Chapter 2. Conquest of Panama.
Chapter 3. The Companions and Successors of Morgan.
Chapter 4. The Cruises of Sawkins and Sharp.
Chapter 5. Dampier’s Voyages.
Volume 3.
Chapter 1. Ravenau de Lussan.
Chapter 2. The Last of the Buccaneers.
Chapter 3. Fall of the Floating Empire.
Chapter 4. The Pirates of New Providence and the Kings of Madagascar.


PREFACE.
I claim for this book, at least originality. But this originality, unfortunately, if it attaches interest to an author’s labours, adds also to his responsibilities.
The history of the Buccaneers has hitherto remained unwritten. Three or four forgotten volumes contain literally all that is recorded of the wars and conquests of these extraordinary men. Of these volumes two are French, one Dutch, and one in English. The majority of our readers, therefore, it is probable, know nothing more of the freebooters but their name, confound them with the mere pirates of two centuries later, and derive their knowledge of their manners from those dozen lines of the Abbé Reynal, that have been transferred from historian to historian, and from writer to writer, for the last two centuries.
The chief records of Buccaneer adventurers are drawn literally from only three books. The first of these is _Oexmelin’s Histoire des Aventuriers_. 12mo. Paris, 1688. Oexmelin was a Frenchman, who went out to St. Domingo as a planter’s apprentice or _engagé_, and eventually became surgeon in the Buccaneer fleet--knew Lolonnois, and accompanied Sir Henry Morgan to Panama.
The second is _Esquemeling’s Zee Roovers_. Amsterdam. 4to. 1684.--A book constantly mistaken by booksellers and in catalogues for Oexmelin. Esquemeling was a Dutch _engagé_ at St. Domingo, and his book is an English translation from the Dutch. The writer appears of humbler birth than Oexmelin, but served also at Panama.
The third is _Ringrose’s History of the Cruises of Sharpe, etc._ This man, who served with Dampier, seems to have been an ignorant sailor, and a mere log-keeper.
The fourth is _Ravenau de Lussan’s Narrative_. De Lussan was a young French officer of fortune, who served in some of Ringrose’s cruises. This is a book written by a vivacious and keen observer, but is less complete than Oexmelin’s, but equally full of anecdote, and very amusing.
For secondary authorities we come to the French Jesuit historians of the West Indian Islands, diffuse Rochefort, the gossiping _bon vivant_ Labat; Tertre, dry and prejudiced; Charlevoix, careful, condensed, and entertaining; and Raynal, polished, classical, second-hand, and declamatory.
The English secondaries are, Dampier, with his companions, Wafer and Cowley. Several old pamphlets contain quaint versions of Morgan’s conquest of Panama; and in 1817, Burney, in his “History of Discoveries in the South Sea,” devotes many chapters to a dry but very imperfect abridgment of Buccaneer adventure, omitting carefully everything that gives either life or colour. Captain Southey, in his “History of the West Indies,” supplies many odd scraps of old voyages, and presents many scattered figures, but attempts no picture.
Nor has modern fiction, however short of material, discovered these new and virgin mines. Mrs. Hall has a novel, it is true, called _The Buccaneer_, the scene of which is, however, laid in England; and Angus B. Reach has skimmed the same subject, but has evidently not even read half the three existing authorities. Dana, the American poet, has a poem called the ,,,continued